Refuge (Relentless Book 2)

“WE’RE NOT GOING back to the lake?”

“Not today.”

I followed Nikolas around the corner of the main building, waiting for an explanation that did not come. Scowling at his back, I hurried to keep up with his long strides as I wondered what the hell was eating at him this morning. He’d barely said a word to me since he had shown up in the dining hall five minutes ago, and his stormy expression was even worse to deal with than his mood last night. I’d been laughing at something Terrence had said when Nikolas arrived and glared at us so hard that poor Terrence and Josh had actually cringed and hurried off to their own table. Even Jordan had refrained from teasing me about Nikolas when she caught sight of his expression. I had no idea what was up with him, but surely he wasn’t still upset about the kark incident. We’d been through a lot worse situations and I’d never seen him in such a black mood after any of them.

“Will you slow down? I’m not going to chase you all over creation because you’re too cranky to walk like a normal person.”

I did not expect him to stop and turn so suddenly, and I ran right into him. Stepping back, I rubbed my nose and met his steel gaze squarely. This – whatever it was – might scare everyone else, but I’d felt the brunt of Nikolas’s moods too many times to be cowed by them.

“I don’t get cranky,” he declared as if I had insulted him.

“Really? Could have fooled me.”

He started walking again, but slower this time, and I was able to keep abreast of him.

“So where are we going?”

“The arena.”

“You’re not going to make me fight bazerats, are you? Because I have to say that was not one of my favorite experiences.”

“You are going to work with your Mori some more.”

“Oh, okay.” A small thrill passed through me at the thought of talking to the Mori again after our first conversation – if you could call it that.

When we got to the arena, Nikolas opened the door and I entered the building ahead of him. He flipped a switch, turning on the overhead lights, and casting a bright glow over the large room, which looked a lot less creepy with the lights on.

The center of the arena was bare except for some thick chains and weights on the floor, and I eyed the chains, wondering what they were for. But Nikolas ignored them and led me over to the bottom row of the bleachers. I sat and he took the seat beside me, putting us so close our shoulders touched. Needing a little more space, I moved down one seat and turned sideways to find him watching me with an almost bemused expression.

“What?”

He looked at me for several more seconds. “How do you feel after yesterday?”

“Do you mean training or the kark thing?”

“Both.”

“Talking to my Mori was not what I expected. I’m really not sure how I feel about it.”

“And the kark attack?”

I lifted a shoulder. “I don’t know; I haven’t really thought much about it. Compared to some of the other stuff I’ve been through, that was nothing.”

His face lost some of its hardness. “That is true.”

“Well, you did call me a danger magnet once.”

A small smile hovered at the corners of his mouth. “I believe I said disaster magnet.”

“The kark incident could hardly be called a disaster, so I think my luck is improving.”

“Maybe it is, but let’s work on training you so you don’t need luck. Do you think you can talk to your Mori like you did yesterday?” I nodded. “Start with that, and then I’ll tell you what I want you to do next.”

I closed my eyes, because it felt more natural that way, and opened my thoughts to the demon crouching inside its cage. Even before I started to lower the wall, I felt the demon’s mixture of anticipation and fear. Come out, I said as the wall disappeared. I won’t hurt you.

The Mori did not need more encouragement than that. Instead of rushing out like it had the first time, it emerged from its cage cautiously, and I could feel it searching for the glow as it called it. When it realized that my power was still locked away, it relaxed, reminding me of a cat sitting back on its haunches. It was hard to believe this small, seemingly timid blob of darkness was the same one that had tried to fill me with violent urges and could give me strength and speed to match a vampire’s.

Now that we’re here, I’m not sure what we are supposed to do, I told it. I don’t suppose you would know.

The demon looked at me with its featureless face but said nothing. Great, neither one of us was a conversationalist. This should be interesting.

Nikolas’s voice cut through the silence between us. “How are you doing?”

Solmi? The demon asked eagerly, and I wondered if maybe it sensed the other Mori nearby.

“I’m good,” I replied without opening my eyes. “What should I be doing?”

“Touch it.”

My eyes flew open. “Touch it?”

He smiled at my reaction. “Yes. If you ever want to tap into all of its powers, you will have to learn to merge with it. Touching it is the first step.”

Merge with the demon? Fuse our minds together the way he’d described yesterday? I wasn’t sure if I would ever be able to do that.

“We will take this as slow as you need to.”

I shut my eyes again and looked at the demon that hadn’t moved at all while I was talking to Nikolas.

I’m not going to hurt you. I’m just going to touch you. I reached toward it slowly, and it shrank back at the last moment.

Look, Nikolas says we have to do this if we’re ever going to work together.

The demon perked up. Solmi?

Yes, Solmi. Maybe if my Mori thought the other demon wanted us to do this, then it would be okay with it. It was worth a try.

It worked. The demon started to lean toward me as I reached for it. This time, it did not flinch away and my mind made contact with the dark shapeless blob.

There is no way to describe the sensations that flowed into me through that single touch. Colors, sounds, and smells bombarded me along with a wave of emotions: fear, love, rage, joy, loneliness, and so many more. It was how I imagined a prisoner would feel, emerging into the sunlight after a lifetime of solitary, a blind man seeing for the first time, a deaf man hearing music. It was the joy of freedom, the fear of losing it again, and an overwhelming need to connect with another living creature.

I absorbed every one of the Mori’s emotions and felt how much I had been hurting it by imprisoning it all these years. It was a demon, but it was also a sentient being and as much a part of me as my heart or lungs. I’d treated imps and bazerats with more compassion and kindness than I had the demon living inside me.

I didn’t know I was crying until a hand touched my face. “Sara, what is it?”

“It hurts so much.”

“You’re in pain?”

I shook my head without opening my eyes. “Not me, my Mori. It’s so lonely and sad.”

“You’re crying for your demon?” There was surprise in his voice along with something else I could not identify.

Pulling back, I turned my face away from him. “You wouldn’t understand.”

It took him a moment to answer. “Do you want to tell me what is happening?”

“I feel so many things it’s almost too much.” I swallowed past the lump in my throat. “I don’t know how you do it, how you live with this all the time.”

“This is your first time opening yourself to your demon. The more you do this, the easier it will be.” He sounded like a trainer again. “Give yourself a few minutes to adjust, and then I want you to tell me what else you feel.”

I faced the onslaught from the Mori until I could take it no longer. Please, it’s too much, I pleaded, about to pull away. The Mori shifted, and the flow of sensations began to lessen until they became a trickle. We were still touching, but I was no longer overwhelmed by its emotions, which allowed me to start exploring our connection. The first thing I discovered was the intelligence of the demon. It had always felt like a mindless beast, lacking rational thought, and even when I had spoken to it yesterday, its halting speech had made me see it as less intelligent than I was. But I realized now that its lack of communication was due to it just not knowing how to talk to me, since I had shut it away for most of my life.

The second thing I found was a pulsing energy I had never felt before. Dark and coiled, it was almost frightening in its intensity and so different than my other power. Whereas my Fae power healed, this power felt angry, destructive. I knew instinctively that this was the essence of the Mori demon and the place from which all Mohiri drew their strength. Curiously, I opened our connection more to draw a delicate thread of it toward me, and the demon let it go willingly. I felt a rush of energy like pure adrenaline, and I took a deep breath, marveling at the strength coursing through me. If this was from our thin connection, I could not imagine what it felt like to become one with the demon the way Nikolas did.

“This is . . . incredible.” For the first time I understood how Nikolas was able to fight all those vampires at once.

“What do you feel?”

I opened my eyes, beaming. “I feel strong, like I could lift a car.”

He smirked. “I think we should start with something a bit smaller. See that small weight over there? It weighs forty pounds. Do you think you can lift that?”

“Do you think I’m that weak? I can lift forty pounds.”

“Yes, but how easily? Can you do it with one hand?”

I stood and walked over to the weights, stopping by the smallest one, a cast-iron kettlebell. Bending at the knees, I grasped the handle in my right hand and straightened up. The weight lifted about a foot off the floor before I lowered it back down with a grunt. “I don’t get it. I feel like I should be able to pick it up.”

“You are feeling your Mori’s power, but you aren’t actually tapped into it yet. In order to do that, you have to work with the Mori instead of trying to take from it.”

“You mean merge with it like you do?” I asked, hearing fear slip into my voice.

“Eventually you’ll do that, but it’s not necessary for this exercise. Right now, I want you to stop touching the Mori and let it reach out to you instead. Open yourself a little, and your Mori will know what to do. You already know you can control the demon, so don’t be afraid of it. Let it in.”

Sure, easy for him to say. I pulled away from the Mori and immediately my mind felt quieter and calmer without all the extra emotions of the demon’s energy. Okay, let’s do this, I said to the Mori that seemed more at ease with me now. It appeared to know what I wanted, but it moved toward me slowly as if it was unsure of what to do. The moment it reached me, its natural instinct seemed to kick in, and it began to stretch and press itself against my mind. I could hear it asking me to let it in, and taking a deep breath, I opened to it.

Tendrils of the demon’s power reached into my mind while others stretched along my spine and down my arms and legs, fusing with my muscles and strengthening my bones. I fought the urge to push it away and concentrated on studying it instead, observing how different it was from my scorching Fae power. This power made me feel physically strong and agile, and it was a heady sensation.

My hand reached for the weight again, and this time I lifted it with more ease. It was still heavier than I’d expected it to be, but the fact that I stood there holding a forty-pound weight in one hand awed me. I let it drop and jumped in the air. “Yes!”

I spun to grin at Nikolas. “Did you see that? That was awesome!”

“Very good. You learn fast.” He had his trainer face on, but I could hear a note of pride in his voice. “Now, I want you to do that again five more times, with each hand.”

I did as he asked, and by the time I finished, a fine sheen of sweat covered my brow. I wiped it away with my sleeve and looked at him triumphantly.

He nodded in approval. “Tired yet?”

“A little,” I lied.

He got up and walked over to me, then bent and lifted a larger kettlebell as if it weighed nothing. “This one is sixty pounds. Think you can lift it?”

I chewed on my lip. “I don’t know.”

He laid the weight on the floor again. “If you need more strength, you just need to ask your Mori to give you more.”

“More?” My body hummed with the strange power filling it. I didn’t know if I could handle more than that.

“If you’re not up to it, it’s okay.”

I knew what he was doing, and still I let myself be goaded. “No, I can do it,” I said to him as I told the demon what I needed. Within seconds, I felt more power flowing into my body. I bent and gripped the handle of the heavier weight and tried to lift it off the ground. It might as well have been welded to the floor. I huffed and tried two more times, barely moving it each time. “I can’t,” I finally admitted, straightening to look at him.

“Lesson number one, demon strength is expendable. You use it up and you will need to let it replenish, just like your own energy.”

“But you never get tired.”

One corner of his mouth lifted. “I do, but it takes a lot more than lifting weights, and I have been doing this a long time.” He went to the largest weight, which judging by its size was at least one hundred and fifty pounds, and hefted it in one hand. “Lesson number two, using your demon strength takes practice. Don’t expect to lift cars any time soon.”

“Show off,” I muttered, and he chuckled.

“You’ll get there. It just takes time.” He laid the weight on the floor again. “You’ve already come a long way for your second lesson.”

“Really?”

His eyes were sincere. “Yes.”

I looked at the sixty-pound weight. “I want to try it again.”

“You’ve done enough for now.”

“You don’t think I can do it.”

“I know you can’t.” He let out a small laugh. I opened my mouth to argue, but he shook his head. “You might not realize it yet, but this is more strenuous than it seems and you’ll feel it later. You don’t want to overdo it.”

“So, are we done training for now?”

He sat and pointed at the seats next to him. “We’ll take a short break, and then I want to try something new.”

I joined him, not sure if I wanted to know what he had in store for me. So far he had been careful not to push me too hard, but we had definitely moved out of my comfort zone. Still, I’d had more progress with my Mori after two days training with Nikolas than weeks with Callum. Despite Nikolas’s mood changes, I was more comfortable talking to him, and it felt like I’d known him a lot longer than three months.

“Can I ask you something?” I said after several minutes of quiet. “You know all about my life, but you never talk about yours. What was it like where you grew up? Where is your family now?”

He leaned back and rested his arms on the backs of the seats on either side of him. “I grew up in a military stronghold just outside Saint Petersburg. Miroslav Fortress is nothing like Westhorne. It’s surrounded by high stone walls and run more like a military base, although there were a number of families like mine there. My parents were advisors to the Council and very involved in planning military operations, so it was necessary for us to live there instead of in one of the family compounds.”

“It doesn’t sound like a fun place to live.” I couldn’t imagine spending my life confined by walls that blocked everything but the sky. The picture in my mind matched the one I had of the Mohiri when I first heard about them, of living in barracks focused on nothing but hunting.

“It was actually a very good life, and we had a lot more luxuries and conveniences than most people had at the time. Back then, even the wealthy didn’t have running water, indoor plumbing, or indoor gas lighting, just to name a few.” His eyes took on a faraway look as he recalled the details of his childhood. “My parents were busy and travelled a lot, but they were very loving, and one of them always stayed home while the other travelled. They pushed me hard in my training and schoolwork, but I knew they were preparing me for the dangers I would face when I became a warrior.”

“So, you’re an only child?”

“Yes.”

“Well, that explains a lot.” I smirked, earning a playful scowl. “Did you have many friends? What did you do for fun?”

“I had a few good friends over the years. Most families moved when the parents were transferred to other strongholds and others moved in. I don’t think I was ever lonely. I liked to watch the warriors train, and I spent a lot of time hanging around the training grounds. They all taught me how to fight and use weapons. By the time I started formal training, I was so advanced they had to place me with the senior trainees.”

Why did that not surprise me? “I bet your parents were very proud of you.”

His eyes shone with affection. “They were; they still are.”

“You said you were in Russia until you were sixteen and then your family moved to England. Why did you move if you all loved the compound in Russia?”

He looked surprised that I had remembered that detail, which he had shared with me back in Maine. “My sire was asked to assume leadership of a key military compound outside London when its leader was killed in a raid. We lived there for eight years before my parents were asked to help establish several new strongholds in North America. By then, I was a full warrior and I found the wildness of this continent appealing, so I tagged along.”

“Where are your parents now?”

“They went back to Russia about fifty years ago. My sire is the leader of Miroslav Fortress now. My mother was offered leadership of another stronghold, but she did not want to be separated from him. I see them at least once a year.”

“So, um, what do you do for fun besides killing vampires and bossing people around?”

His eyebrows rose, and I gave him what I thought was my most innocent look. “Come on, you have to do something for fun. Do you read? Watch TV? Knit?”

“I read sometimes.” He named a few books by Hemmingway, Vonnegut, and Scott, and it was no surprise they were all about war. He did not care for television or movies, and according to him the best decade for music was the sixties. I laughed when he admitted that he and Chris had been at Woodstock and I tried to imagine them in the bohemian clothes popular at the time. He said he was there because the event attracted a lot of vampires, and most of the attendees were too stoned or drunk or high on love to pay attention to them. I found it impossible to believe that Nikolas or Chris could go anywhere unnoticed, but I kept that observation to myself.

“By the way, why didn’t you tell me Chris was my cousin? What if I’d started crushing on him like every other girl back home?” Ugh.

The look he shot me was indecipherable. “You were spooked when you learned what you were, and I thought it was too soon to introduce you to your Mohiri family. If it makes you feel better, Chris didn’t know at first either.”

“Just promise, no more keeping things from me.”

“Ask me anything and I’ll give you an honest answer,” he said after a short pause, and it made me feel like there were important questions I didn’t know to ask.

“You ready to try something different?” he asked after we had been sitting for twenty minutes.

“Like what?”

He turned more toward me. “I’ve been thinking about what you told me yesterday about your power getting stronger. You were worried it might hurt your demon or another Mohiri, but I don’t think it will, at least not intentionally. The bazerats and lamprey demons were in their true form, which made them more vulnerable to your power.” He reached over and took my hand in his. “Our demons live inside us and are shielded by our bodies. I think that, and the fact that you also have a Mori inside you, is why your power is not flaring up right now.”

I held my breath as the truth of his words sank in. He was right; my power was not reacting to him at all. The only thing stirring in me were the tiny butterflies in my stomach from him holding my hand. Tugging my hand from his, I tucked it into my pocket. “Was that what you wanted to try?”

One corner of his mouth quirked. “Not quite. We know your power doesn’t react instinctively toward me, but I want to find out if you can use it against me consciously.”

“What?” I jumped to my feet and backed away from him. “Are you crazy? I could kill you.”

“You won’t.”

“You don’t know that!” An image surfaced of what had been left of the lamprey demon, and I shook my head. “You didn’t see what I did to that demon in Boise. If you had, you wouldn’t even suggest this.”

He stood but didn’t move toward me. “I saw the pictures our guys took before they cleaned it up.”

I took another step back. “Then why the hell would you ask me to try to do that to you?”

“I’m not asking you to do that.” He held up his hands. “Listen to me. I think your power reacts when you are frightened or in danger, and you don’t believe it, but you can control it. You were in mortal danger when the lamprey demon attacked you and you knew you had to kill or be killed, so you did what you had to do to survive. You may have been afraid when you were in here with the bazerats, but you never really felt like you were in real danger, did you? Not with everyone outside.”

I thought about how I’d felt when the bazerat had leapt at me. I’d been scared yes, but afraid for my life? No. All I’d wanted was to subdue them, and I didn’t even know they were demons until after the task was complete.

“You’ve been using your power to heal creatures most of your life and you know how to manipulate it and how to release it in controlled bursts, right?” I nodded. “It’s the same power; you just used it offensively with the demons. I think you can learn to use your power as a weapon if you start thinking of it as one and the same.”

I chewed the inside of my cheek. I was pretty sure he was right about the power all coming from the same source, and I was excited about the possibility of learning to use it to protect myself. After all, what would be better than a weapon you could carry inside you?

But what if I tried to use it on Nikolas and I couldn’t control it? What if I hurt him or worse? The thought of him dying left me cold; the thought of me being the one to end his life sucked the air from my lungs, and I had to remind myself to breathe. “I can’t . . . I can’t do it . . . ” I wheezed, close to hyperventilating.

Nikolas moved so fast he was gripping my shoulders before I could react. His eyes softened to a smoky gray as they captured mine. “This really frightens you, doesn’t it?”

I could only nod.

“All the more reason for you to learn to master it. If you don’t, it will control you instead, and we both know how much you hate being controlled.” His lips curved into a small smile. “You trust me, right?”

I looked past his shoulder, wondering how he could ask that after everything we had been through. “Yes.”

“And I trust you with my life.”

My eyes snapped back to his and met his unwavering gaze.

“I trust you, Sara, and I know you won’t hurt me.”

“Yes, but – ”

“You were afraid to connect with your Mori at first, but you did it and now you no longer fear it. This is no different.” His hands left my shoulders and ran down my arms to take my hands and lay my palms against his chest. I could feel his slow steady heartbeat under my fingers, telling me with more than words how confident he was in me. “Start slow and see what happens. You can pull away anytime you need to.”

“Okay,” I agreed shakily. “But not here.” I was not going to take a chance of something going wrong so close to his heart. Lifting my hands from his chest, I took one of his hands in both of mine, acutely aware of the rough texture of his palm against mine. I opened my power and let it slowly fill my hands but didn’t try to push into him. He stood, unmoving, showing no signs he felt anything out of the ordinary.

“Do you feel anything?” I asked him, and he shook his head. I turned it up a notch and asked him again. Still nothing. More power pooled in my hands and they began to emit a soft glow. It was enough power to mend a dog’s broken leg yet Nikolas didn’t even twitch a muscle.

“Your hands feel warmer. What are you doing?” he asked, and I explained how I was directing power to them as I would for a healing.

I released his hand. “I don’t think this is going to work. I only know how to heal things, and I don’t know what I did to those demons.”

“Hmmm.” He stared over my head for a moment before he gave me a smile that made me wary. “Your offensive power only surfaces when there is a demon nearby, but it doesn’t sense my Mori.”

“That’s a good thing though, right?” At least I could rest knowing I wouldn’t hurt another Mohiri.

“It is as long as we keep our demons restrained, but what happens if we allow them closer to the surface.” Something in his voice made me nervous and I tried to pull away, but he grabbed my hands again

“Nikolas, whatever you are thinking is a really bad idea.” I gasped as his eyes began to shimmer like pools of liquid silver. I stared into them like a moth mesmerized by flame, and it wasn’t until my Mori came roaring awake and straining against its walls that I was able to break free of their spell. It was all I could do to restrain my own demon that fought to get closer to Nikolas’s.

It wasn’t until I had wrangled my Mori back under control that I realized it wasn’t the only thing that had awakened. No, no, no, I wailed silently as the first sparks of static crackled through my hair. I reached for the runaway magic and pulled it back inside me with more ease than I had expected. It felt wild and exhilarating compared to the tame healing power I knew so well, and for several seconds I was tempted to let it go free, to see what it could do.

Strength I didn’t know I possessed filled me, and I tore my hands from Nikolas’s and backed away from him. Surprise flickered on his face before he began to stalk me silently, his intent clear in his eyes. What the hell was wrong with him? Didn’t he realize how much I could hurt him right now?

“Nikolas, please stop,” I pleaded as he continued to advance on me. “I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to hurt you.”

Instead of answering, he blurred out of sight. A second later, I screamed as hands gripped my shoulders from behind. I knew it was him, but instinct took over and the power I had just reigned in lashed out at him. The Mori surged forward, and I cried out as I latched onto my power at the last second to keep the brunt of it from hitting him. I smelled ozone a split second before there was a crackling pop, followed by something crashing into the wooden seats behind me.

I spun around, and my heart stuttered when I saw Nikolas sprawled unmoving on the floor. “Nikolas!”

In seconds, I was kneeling at his side, shaking him roughly. “Nikolas, wake up! Oh God, please don’t be dead.” He didn’t move, and I pressed my ear to his chest, swallowing back a sob when I heard his heartbeat and felt his chest rise and fall. I rose over him and peered at his closed eyes and slightly parted lips that made him look like he was merely sleeping. He was alive, but I had no idea what my power had done to him. My chest squeezed painfully until I could barely breathe.

His lids flickered open and his smoky gaze locked with mine, making the breath catch in my throat. Before I could find my voice, he gave me a lazy smile. “I said you could do it.”

“You jerk! You . . . you asshole!” I punched his chest hard and scrambled to my feet. Angry tears burned the back of my throat as I ran toward the door. To think I had been worried about hurting him. If I wasn’t afraid I’d actually kill him this time, I’d turn around and give him a real dose of my power.

“Umph!” I grunted when I ran smack into his chest. Too angry to speak or look at him, I tried to move around him, but he grabbed me before I could get past him.

“Sara, we needed to test your power to see if you can use it at will, and now we know.”

“At will?” I blazed at him. “I almost fried your ass! If I hadn’t pulled it back in time, you’d be singing a different tune. No, actually, you’d probably be dead.”

“But you did control it, as I knew you would. You want to know how I knew that?”

He let go of my arms, and I crossed them to keep from throttling him. “Please, educate me.”

“I know because if there is one thing I have learned about you it’s that you are incapable of hurting someone – unless they are trying to hurt you or someone you care about.” He gave me one of his infuriating smiles. “Then all bets are off.”

Feeling my anger abate under the force of his smile, I looked away from him. I used to watch Roland and some of the other boys back home using sweet words and boyish grins to charm girls, but Nikolas was in a whole different league. “You scared the hell out of me,” I said, unable to keep a note of hurt out of my voice. “I thought . . . ”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t want to frighten you, but the only way to get you to show your power was to expose you to a demon and to put you on the defensive. Now we know what you can do and we can work with that, and teach you to call on it when you need it.”

I shook my head fervently. “I am never doing that again.”

“Not that, no,” he replied calmly, ignoring my outburst. “We won’t have to try anything that drastic next time.”

“Next time? What part of never do you not understand?” I practically shouted at him.

His eyebrows rose. “So you refuse to use your power on me again, no matter what I do?”

“That’s right.”

“And how will you stop it?”

I knew he was trying to trick me somehow, but I couldn’t stop from asking, “What do you mean?”

“If I bring my Mori out again and come after you, what’s to stop your power from attacking me again?”

“I will stop it.”

“How?”

So much for his faith in me. “I just will, okay? I know what it is now, and I won’t let it get away from me again.”

He did not respond, and my words hung in the silence between us until the full meaning of what I’d said hit me. That sneaky bastard! He had planned this all along.

“So now that we have that settled, why don’t we try something easy that doesn’t involve throwing me across the room?” He looked entirely too self-satisfied for someone who had just gotten his butt kicked. “If you are up for it, that is.”

Damn him. He knew I would not back down from a challenge like that. I turned and stomped back to the center of the arena. “Fine, but don’t blame me if I knock you on your butt again. And you owe me for making me believe I killed you.”

Nikolas’s husky laughter followed me. “Okay. What do you want?”

I watched him walk toward me and smiled. “I need to go into town this week to pick up a bunch of stuff for Oscar before he gets here.” I had a suspicion Nikolas had never been inside a pet store, let alone picked out kitty litter. Maybe those muscles would come in handy.

His brows drew together. “Oscar?”

“My cat. Nate is bringing him when he comes for Thanksgiving.”

“Oh.” I could tell by his expression he had expected me to ask for something bigger than a ride to the pet store. Maybe next time I’d think up something more impressive.

We spent the next hour working on my ability to summon my defensive power. It wasn’t easy to stimulate it without a demon nearby, and I flatly refused to let Nikolas use his as bait again. After forty minutes, I started to get a feel for it and managed to send a few sparks flying from my fingertips. Nikolas made me concentrate on that until I started to tire and my stomach began to growl. I didn’t admit it, but I was pleased by my progress by the time we broke for lunch.

“When do you want to go into town?” Nikolas asked, opening the door for me.

“Can we go this weekend?” I asked eagerly. I had plans this afternoon.

“I think we can arrange that.”

Thinking of my afternoon plans reminded me I hadn’t thanked him for what he had done for the hellhounds. “Chris told me you were the one who had Hugo and Woolf sent here. Thank you for doing that.”

“You don’t have to thank me. They belong with you.”

A companionable silence settled over us as we walked across the grounds, but it was broken when Nikolas muttered, “That boy is going to cut his own head off.”

I followed his gaze to Michael who was swinging a slender sword in an unsteady arc as he practiced some moves near the edge of the trees. As if he sensed our eyes on him, Michael stopped mid-swing and stared at Nikolas in awe before he looked away shyly.

I watched Michael thoughtfully and let out a quiet sigh. “Can I exchange the trip into town for something else?”

Nikolas stopped walking and gave me a questioning look. “You don’t want to go into town?”

“I do, but I want something more now.”

Interest sparkled in his eyes. “All right, let’s have it.”

“I want you to teach Michael not to cut off his head.” Nikolas gave me a puzzled look, and I shrugged. “He needs a lesson in sword fighting a lot more than I need a ride to town. Besides, you have no idea how much this will mean to him. He looks up to you a lot.”

Nikolas looked at Michael, and his gaze was unreadable when it returned to me. For a moment, I thought he was going to say no. “If that’s what you want.”

“It is,” I replied, and I meant it.

“Okay, I’ll see what I can do for him, but no promises. And I’ll still take you into town.”

I imagined Michael’s excitement when Nikolas offered to work with him, and I couldn’t restrain myself. I threw my arms around Nikolas’s waist and gave him a quick hug. “Thanks!” Shocked by my actions, I pulled away from him and hurried toward the main building before he could see the hot blush creeping across my cheeks.

* * *

“You’re serious? You are actually going to take those two monsters for a walk?”

“Don’t call them that, Jordan. You saw how good they are with me. They’re like big puppies.”

Water sprayed across the table and a few drops landed on my face. I wiped them away as Jordan grabbed a napkin to clean herself up. “You have one twisted imagination if you think those mons – er – brutes are like puppies. I’m starting to think there is something way off about you, Sara”

“Scared?”

“Not.” Her lips curved into a pretty smirk. “Despite your weirdness, your cluelessness when it comes to men, and your complete lack of fashion sense, I still believe there is hope for you. Besides, you are the only other female here I can actually be around for more than an hour.”

I plucked a grape from my fruit bowl and threw it at her. “You keep insulting me and you can find someone else to play dress up with.” Not that I had any intention of allowing her to turn me into her life-sized doll.

“Speaking of dressing up, did your warrior boy see you all prettied up last night?”

I rolled my eyes. “He is not my warrior, and you were totally wrong about him. I might as well have been wearing a pillow case.”

“I am never wrong about these things. He is a temperamental one so he was probably in a bad mood. Hell, I thought he was going to rip someone’s head off this morning. I almost pitied you having to train with him, but it looks like you survived in one piece.”

“Barely.”

Chris chose that moment to walk in for lunch, and he smiled and waved at me as he passed us. Jordan’s eyes followed him appreciatively for a moment before she looked back at me with a sly smile. “So, Nikolas has some competition, does he?”

The girl never quit. “Chris is my cousin, Jordan.”

Her eyes grew round. “Cousin? Why didn’t you say something before?”

“I found out last night.”

It took her a less than thirty seconds to make the connection. “But he is Tristan’s kinsman. Does that mean . . . ?”

“Tristan is my grandfather. His daughter, Madeline, is my mother.”

Her eyes grew round. “Holy hell! That is crazy! You found out all of that last night?”

“Tristan told me who he was almost two weeks ago. I didn’t want people to make a big deal of it, so I asked him to keep it between us for now. I guess it won’t be a secret much longer.”

“No shit. Talking about winning the orphan lottery.”

“I would have settled for not being abandoned by my mother in the first place.”

“Mommy issues. Gotcha.” Jordan leaned across the table with a gleam in her eyes. “If you are Lord Tristan’s granddaughter, does that make you a lady or something?”

“God no, or at least I hope not. I’m having trouble just getting used to the idea of having a grandfather who looks a few years older than me.”

“Especially one so hot.”

“Ugh! Do not even go there.”

She burst out laughing, drawing the attention of some of the people around us. It was obvious by their stares that Jordan’s laughter was not an everyday occurrence, and they were probably wondering if I had spiked her water or something.

She pursed her lips and studied Chris who was sitting with Seamus and Niall. “Hmm. You know, I’ve always liked blondes.”

I ducked my head to hide my smile. Poor Chris, he thought human girls were aggressive.

“Just the two ladies I wanted to talk to.” Terrence stopped at our table carrying his lunch tray. “You girls up for a party Saturday night?”

“A party?” Jordan’s eyes lit up. “Will it be better than that one you guys threw last month, where you all got drunk and passed out by midnight?”

“A lot better.” He ignored her barb and laid his tray on the table so he could lean down to say in a low voice, “A townie party.”

“I’m in,” Jordan declared without asking for details.

“Wait. Are we even allowed to go?” After our trip to Boise, I wasn’t sure Tristan would let me go anywhere without a bodyguard. A party wouldn’t be much fun with one or both of the twins looming in the background.

Terrence smiled. “Josh and I go to Butler Falls all the time, so I doubt anyone would have a problem with it.”

“And they can’t say no if you don’t ask,” Jordan added. “That usually works pretty well for me.”

“You mean sneak out?” Tristan said they believed the Master thought I was dead so I was safe from that threat, but he was feeling overly protective after the demon attack and I didn’t want to worry him.

Jordan snorted. “You so don’t strike me as the type to ask permission before you do something.”

“It’s not that simple. I did some really stupid things before I came here, and I almost got my friends and my uncle killed. I promised Nate I would be more careful.”

“Well, it’s gonna be a hell of a party,” Terrence said. “Our friend, Derek, has a killer pad and he keeps his bar well stocked.”

Jordan swung her gaze from me to Terrence. “I’m still in. Anything is better than Saturday night hanging out here.”

Terrence straightened and picked up his tray. “Cool, and maybe Sara will change her mind by then.”

I watched him walk over to join Josh before I turned to Jordan. “I thought you two couldn’t stand each other.”

She shrugged one shoulder. “Na, Terrence just knows how to flip my bitch switch and I know how to get a rise out of him. We hooked up once last year, but we both realized that was a huge mistake.”

Jordan and Terrance? I speared a piece of pineapple with my fork and chewed it, trying to figure her out. Hanging out with her was like having a friend with multiple personalities; you never knew who was going to show up next.

“Anyway, whether or not you go to the party is probably moot.”

“Why?” I asked her.

She gave me a cheeky grin. “Because those two puppies of yours are most likely going to eat you today.”